This invention relates to the production of methyl resorcinol and more particularly to the hydrolysis of toluene diamines with ammonium bisulfate to produce methyl resorcinols.
Methyl resorcinols have mild germicidal and antiseptic properties and consequently find use in skin lotions and hair tonics.
Toluene is readily nitrated to the dinitro stage. This stage is reached as a mixture of two isomers 2,4-dinitrotoluene and 2,6-dinitrotoluene. The predominate isomer is the 2,4-dinitrotoluene. These isomers can be readily reduced to the corresponding amines. The amine isomers can be separated, for example, by distillation and are commercially available. While the separate isomers can be used in the practice of this invention, it has been found that for many uses of the methyl resorcinols, it is not necessary to separate the isomers but the mixture of amines may be used to obtain a mixture of methyl resorcinol isomers.